Grandma Wong (Tsai Chin) is on her own. Yes, she has an affluent son who lives in a brownstone, but in spite of his invitation, she prefers to live in the apartment she shared with her late husband in New York’s Chinatown. Throughout, we see her through clouds of cigarette smoke, sitting imperiously before a pile of poker chips, remaining tough and taciturn in the wake of smiling solicitations, and as the one person wide awake on a bus full of sleeping passengers.

To have enough money to keep her apartment, she’s determined to score a windfall, so she takes a bus to an out of state casino, believing, as her fortune teller has told her, that her future holds some luck. This is almost true: she is about to win big when her luck goes south, and she leaves the casino dejected. However, the man sitting next to her on the bus home is not actually asleep but dead, and his open carry-on bag reveals heaps of wadded bills. Grandma Wong takes it, wishing that he rest in peace, not knowing that she has taken gang money or that there will be men looking for it. The next day, they show up in her apartment.

Lucky Grandma, the debut feature from Sasie Sealy, is an expert and affecting blend of genres (thriller, comedy, gangster film) that contains genuine humor, suspense, and sadness. Each character and setting is distinct, effective, and rich. At times irreverent, it is never tasteless, and while there are many laughs, they are never at Grandma Wong’s expense. Especially striking is the filmmaker’s exquisite sense of balance. Between dialogue and action, music and silence, strikingly framed still images and quick camera movements, our attention rarely falters because Sealy uses a wide range of tools at her disposal and deploys them so adeptly. 

There is much comedy to be found in the ways the assorted characters inhabit the same room. In several shots, Grandma Wong and her very large, very earnest bodyguard (Corey Ha) are framed side by side on her couch, with her small body sidled up right next to his enormous physique, creating unforced visual humor. In one amusing scene, the two of them end up sharing the apartment with her grandson, David (Mason Yam), and his young friend (Arden Wolfe) as they study and make dance videos together. Meanwhile, the gangsters are alternately omniscient and incompetent. 

It is immensely satisfying to be in the hands of a director who manages to juggle so many disparate elements to remarkable effect. Still, the irascible, stubborn, defiant, and loyal Grandma Wong, as beautifully played by Chin, remains the film’s chief glory. I suspect that many viewers will come to love her, and I hope they will, someday, have a chance to see her on the big screen, but in the meantime, the movie is now streaming via virtual cinemas nationwide.